Friday, September 30, 2011

Say what?

Argh! I even had to retype the title because my German keyboard has z and y switched. It first said "Saz what?" Maybe that would be a better title for this entry, anyway.

It is Monday, midday, here in Europe. I came into work to have another fresh-faced go at the work thing, and made a point of going to my group's coffee hour, at the Physics cafeteria at 10:30am, even though I was going to have my first German class (in post-beginners' German) shortly afterwards. I went, it was quiet, with only 3 of us there, I tried to ask a few questions to liven things up, about people's weekends. A few more people came. Someone who had just been speaking with me in English switched to German. And so went the rest of the 30 min, as others came for coffee.

Oh, such good practice for you, to have to speak in German, someone might say. Up yours, I might reply. I am already a bit lonely at work. I spend a lot of time working on my own. No one seems interested in a journal club up here. I'm tired. And conversation isn't flowing as things stand, even in English.

Yes, that is a bit bitchy. In reality, though, I'm trying to participate in my group's activities, and to have to strain to listen in on conversations, to be the only woman whether 2 or 10 other groups members show up, when I might catch 20% of what is being said, only to realize that it is a private conversation that was marked early on by some quiet word or two that I missed, is not what makes a Monday easier. I kind of just wanted to move back to the US this morning around 11am.

Ironically, my German class was 50% women, with a talkative, very approachable female instructor, and I had a great 1 1-2 hours speaking German with people not from work. As long as I remember to get a sandwich or lunch just before class, I think this is going to go well. As for work, maybe I'll just start an online journal club.

Summer is officially over

I just read the dooce.com post for yesterday. And there she is, writing about how seasonal affective disorder hits her every year at this time. Sad for no real reason, just sad. In September, around equinox. So I am putting in a photo I took last week, that I love the look and feel of, that no way in hell am I ever going to set as my desktop during any cold/grey months of the year.


There it is, end of summer, almost 8pm and the streetlights have just turned on.

No wonder. I have been extra vigilant with the am-I-depressed-again self assessments and even though it has been sunny most of last week, yesterday and the day before, I was in a mood. Sad, disappointed with work, unmotivated, add a pinch of bitchy. And had no idea why. And was hoping that it wasn't the call to medication again.

I think that living with depression feels like your strings are stretched a little more loosely than other people's. We zip through our day on these lines, and below us are happy fields and sad pools, and when you are depressed, your zipline just sags a bit, and your feet get caught in those pools, you slow down and then stay longer immersed in the pools. When I was on anti-depressants, my zipline was stretched tight. My feet didn't touch those pools, even when I passed them. They were there, I saw them, but my physical self didn't feel like it was caught in them.

Thank god for an ex-Mormon blogger with a good enough sense of humor and a depressive system to remind me that some of these downs are shared by many many people. There were some 60 comments on her post saying things like "Oh! I forgot about the seasonal change! No wonder I hate everything these last few days and don't know why I'm sad."

Perhaps this also explains my sudden interest in the Hipstamatic B&W expansion pack for my iPhone. Great photos, lovely focus on shape, and totally depressing. Rock on, subconscious!



In other news, L left back for home, so summer really IS over, but she left behind the coolest arrangement of 70% of our artwork on the dining room wall. We just went from no art, to most of our art being up and it feels more like home yet again.


Monday, September 19, 2011

I really don't care if you like me or not

Lie. Of course I care. And this may be one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to teaching effectively. I'm helping teach a course for new physics lab instructors, and the group of 7 male PhD students and postdocs look at me while I talk. Some of them don't, perhaps hoping I don't ask them a question.

But maybe they are just bored. Crap, look at that guy, who has been the most active participant so far, his eyes are rolling back into his head. I'm boring him! I'm boring them all! Quick, smile more, song and dance, why won't they smile and nod at me? Why won't you like me?!?

Wait time, out the window.

Skip some parts of my slides, because they probably think what I'm saying is too touchy feely. I don't give edicts, or rules, I'm just talking about building rapport with your students. Which, apparently, I suck at. Or do I? I have no idea.

I do know that it shouldn't be the point of my teaching, whether they like me or not. Because it leads to too many "right?" (smile, nod and hope they do too) moments. So what my last minute activities didn't fly, I've made notes to make them better next time. At least I stopped talking for a while and they got to do something.

The other thing that I have encountered again is the confusion over how to pitch this stuff. I'm the only woman in the room, I'm not a working scientist, and I don't believe in "I know better than you" presentations. And yet, people want to learn from masters, those who they feel are better at them at things. How do I strike a balance between getting them to buy into my expertise on these topics without having to pull an alpha roll on the audience with a flurry of my PhD letters and references and establishing dominance? How do you preach non-dominance without dominating a class full of male physicists to get their attention. Or anyone for that matter? Female physics professors, too. How do I challenge the cult of genius in a presentation when I worry that I have to convince the audience I'm a genius to listen to my presentation.

Foucault used to dream about writing an article anonymously so that people would read his ideas fresh, with no preconceptions about who was writing. And yet, to get people to publish it, to spend time reading it, he knew he would have to sign it. I may not be no Einstein, but maybe I'm a little bit Foucault.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Always wondering, not often saying it

If this is not the first blog post of mine you have read, chances are you know already that I am fairly open about my depression, about anti-depressants, and issues surrounding both. And I stopped taking anti-depressants again, after almost a year, a few weeks ago.

Like the last time I did this, there was the feeling that life was way more bearable and stable, that enough things had changed in those 10-11 months, that it was time to try without the medication. And as last time, there was a tiny fear of taking off the training wheels I'd been happily tooling around with for almost a year. How would I feel? Would I start getting angry with A again? Would I start crying again? Would it have been a mistake, and maybe show me that I'll likely be on the medication from now on, at least until my daughter it a lot older?

I probably told 3-4 people that I went of the medication. I told M, my cousin, and a few friends here in Zurich, one of whom has gone through a lot of similar ups and downs as me. They are people I trust to know this, mostly because they have been the ones I didn't get the pity looks and the "ohhhh, you're still on the medication, huh? That's too bad..." vibes from whenever I spoke of how I was feeling. Just a suggestion, if you have a loved one who is on anti-depressants, and is speaking about it openly, not with shame (even more so for those who are ashamed of it), talking to them like this does not help. It isn't nice, it isn't kind, you're not really interested in their well-being if you haven't taken the time to realize how monumentally their struggle was before the drugs and how much better they feel now. So stop it. It is not that different from "ohhh, you're still single?" or "ohhh, you are still in that relationship you hate?" No matter how nice a tone a person tries to put on those statements, they are all, still, essentially, judgmental. They show your disappointment about something in the person's life.

Aaaaanyway, the withdrawl from the Cymbalta sucked. Lots of nausea, even now once every few days, out of the blue. A nasty 4 hours of stomach cramps, maybe. Other than that, I'd love to say I didn't notice any change, but there were small ones.

As I was boarding the plane to Copenhagen a few weeks ago, I could feel a little wave of sadness about something I had been thinking or reading, when I said "goodbye" before my trip to A, I cried, at the thought of something happening to me on the flights and not coming back, and every few days, I can feel the not-so-happy hormones surround my thoughts. It reminds me of the swings in the park. When A sits on them, her feet wave freely about, high above the gravel. When I sit on them, if I don't lift my legs, my feet drag in the gravel. Being on anti-depressants was like having shorter legs for a while - I didn't have to put in effort to lift myself out of the sad gravel, and pretty much every day my feet were clear of it.

So, for a few weeks, I've felt my long swingset legs come back, and that has been ok. Sure, I wish I was a more unflappable person, but my brain doesn't work that way. And it is the reason M and I always kiss goodbye when we part in the morning, because many years ago I was keenly aware of how fragile life is and I wanted to make sure we had a proper farewell. Every day. Now it is just habit, and a nice one, even if one or both of us it upset with the other.

Then a few days ago, Monday afternoon, I had to get A from daycare early because of a holiday, I had stupidly brought her big tricycle for the park but not thought about having to corral that and the stroller on the buses and trams, she was on day 5 of a nap-strike (which is now over, thank everything!), I hadn't napped, and I almost lost it, 5 minutes after pickup, on the way to the bus. I couldn't find M on the phone or text, and his building was locked (because of the holiday) so I couldn't leave one of the vehicles there, or even go cry in his office for 5 minutes.

Shit. Shitshitshitshit. I don't want to cry. Why do I feel like crying? Do I have to go back on the meds again so soon? Can I not even handle one messy 30 minutes? Shit. Don't cry! That's dumb, not actually crying doesn't mean I'm not depressed if I then spend all my energy trying not to cry. How will I know if I have to get on the meds again? What limit of shitty behavior or mood will I set this time? I don't want to wait too long? Oh, I'm so disappointed in all of this. Crap!
It passed. I went about the rest of the afternoon, lugging that tricycle around, and then catching A as she sped across the park and down the block, and it was tiring, but fine. 

Last night I got my period. 

buy Within by Chris Bellamy art online
Big, huge, loud sigh. A once a month, weepy afternoon, I can handle. I can learn to take more easily and gently. I can cancel all plans but those that help me out. It is probably not the depression again, after all. But from now on, now that I've realized that I might have this tendency long-term, now that I've been on medication twice, I'll always wonder.

(The image is a painting by Chris Bellamy. It is already sold, but if I weren't I would want to buy it. That is what it looks like to me when I walk in the forest without my glasses on.)

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

The coolest playground ever.

Ok, maybe that is the wrong way to go about thinking about this project. It is definitely a title that will get me in trouble with hopes and expectations of mine. How do you design a playground? Nature is a great playground for kids. Places where kids can run and hide and find, and collect. Places where water from rain or a pump are made available, sand can be molded and shaped and collaborated around, shelters for parents and cubbies for toddlers. But then, I have books on my desk at work with pre-fabricated playground equipment that looks pretty cool and shows pieces that allow disabled kids to play, too. Because the kid at the farmer's market last Saturday, who just watched longingly at the two dinky swings and one see-saw, should have a chance to swing, too.
I have YouTube videos tagged that show great, crazy see-saws and spinning disks. I have websites marked where landscape designers' work is showcased and explained. Amsterdam and Berlin are apparently home to loads of funky playgrounds, with the tradition dating back to artists in postwar Europe. High risk areas encourage kids to decide on how to play, low risk areas placate us moms. And now let's try to make it a physics playground on top of it all. Yes, I know there is physics in every playground, but it isn't often part of the take-away message. How about some coupled swings? Or a see-saw where kids can lift two adults on a ski lift chair because the lever arm is so long. I'm torn, between sound focusing disks, merry-go-rounds attached to generators and see-saw water pumps in natural settings, and making the place extremely accessible to both strollers and wheelchairs. I realize these may not be mutually exclusive, but I sure could use a landscape designer to help me out. I want an inclined shade structurewith prisms and color filters embedded, and lots of little holes to project images of the sun (imagine going to a playground on purpose to watch the passage of a solar eclipse on the ground), and maybe contain time telling structures.
I want some underlying sense of scientific activity - encouraging observation and experimentation, even if there is no huge, parents vs. kids see-saw. And sculptures with a sense of humor and climbing/sliding functionality.
(by Tom Otterness, pretty much the look on many parents' faces at a playground and what kids love to see.) I guess I need to find some engineers who want in on the project, too. Engineers and landscape architects. Good thing I'm at a university with programs in both.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Date-night, Basel.







We took our first sort-of out of town trip this time. A stayed with her babysitter and we went an hour away by train. That is currently the distance I can imagine both her parents being away. But that's just me.

In the end, we really didn't see much of Basel apart from a walk around the old town, which is a bit smaller and a good bit more charming than Zurich. What really got me was the sense that Basel's streets are more mixed-use than here. Here, you go to one neighborhood for funky stores in renovated lofts, another for the old town, another for restaurants, etc. There it seemed more like a bit of everything in the same place. And the university is much more integrated into the city. It seems. I may just be looking for something to hate on (it is raining and cold today, and, after all, I'm off anti-depressants).

We mostly just spent time at a fancy fancy hotel, relaxing. M got a massage on Sunday morning in the room while I spent an hour and a half on our balcony, doing the crossword, worrying about being bored, closing my eyes and listening to the river sounds, reading a Real Simple magazine I bought at the train station, thinking, remembering I was worried about being bored, and finally realizing that bored is luxurious when you have a toddler. Hallelujah.

And Saturday night, for the first time ever, we ate in a Michelin 2-star rated restaurant. Now, if a 7 course meal, where every course is some of the best food I've ever had, comes with the 2-star rating, I'm wondering what happens in a 3-star restaurant. Do the waiters skydive in? Do puppies get placed around your feet in a snuggly basket? Let's just say that it was a wonderful meal, and even though each course might be small - the one mussel and one beet macaroon, for instance - they were exquisite, and by the end we were full. Ah, right, the end. Dinner took 3 hours. Another luxury when you have kids. We sat on a warm to cool balcony, during sunset, overlooking the river, talking, closing our eyes and really tasting food, laughing at what seemed like 4 different dessert courses (not including the cheese!)....for 3 hours.

I'm sure Basel is a great place to visit. Next time we'll have to go to a museum or something.

Visual images in Vilnius, and beyond



Why lie, indeed?

I don't like tagging. I find all that messy, dripping, look-how-many-times-I-can-spraypaint-my-symbol graffiti obnoxious. Like a muscle car with the bass turned way up, blasting through the neighborhood, but worse. They just parked the eyesore in one place and you have to keep seeing it.

I do like street art. I like modern art, too, I guess, and to me they go together. I like seeing what colors and shapes and humor and statements show up along the tracks into any European train station. I like the thought that goes into it.




I like seeing different languages and words on packaging in different places, too. Like the t-shirts that made so little sense it was almost like English language poetry in Japan. And this baking "soda" that my cousin bought to clean with in Vilnius.



And then the formally sanctioned art, like this street in Vilnius where different artists each made a plaque for a Lithuanian writer. I like seeing art in places other than just museums. I struggle a lot with what kind to buy and hang in my own apartment - meaning, I just put it all in my "shopping basket" on Etsy or E-bay or link to an artist's webpage and never click "buy" because I am so overwhelmed with the commitment.




But I do like street art, and during our trip, L reminded me of an artist (in London?) who cleaned off grime under bridges as his "paint" - he wasn't applying anything new to any walls, just cleaning swatches that made up his artwork. How great is that? Someone mentioned that there wasn't much street art in Vilnius, but we found it in little around-the-corner spots. I like the animal stickers a lot. They are sweet. I think they look cute, give a little life to the walls. This means, unfortunately, there is no need for L and I to secretly go back there and start making our own art with a box of baking soda, a bucket of water and some thin brillo pads. So much for my secret life as a graffiti artist.




The last photo is from home, from a new IKEA dresser I've used to create our fourth wall for the guestroom. Just around that unit is the great blue sofa, and it is now joined by one whole cabinet space for a visiting guest. It will be my canvas, in lieu of a true street art career. Like so many women before me and after me, I will be an off-the-street artist and try my hand at visual design inside the apartment. Each drawer or door holds the dog leashes, the baby hats, my or M's shoes, etc. We keep forgetting which is which. So I've bought white contact paper and will be making visual silhouettes to stick on each one as a quick reminder. So far, only the dog leash drawer is blessed with an idea for design. The baby hats, baby socks, baby shoes, swim things, shopping bags, baby jackets and our shoes spaces are all wanting for good icon ideas.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Don't date your students

I'm working this week, again, on my slides for an upcoming lab TA training workshop I am helping to teach here. And I'm putting in something about the concept of the balance of power in a university science lab class or discussion section.

So I headed to the Google to find an image for power balance, and these "buy one and you will magically exercise better" bracelets were the main image that came up. Apparently the fine folks in their advertising department have had to retract some statements that have no scientific basis of fact. Oops.

This idea of talking about power differences, that students are graded by the TA, came up for me when I asked my colleagues if they ever mention, as was done at every session of TA training in Arizona, "and don't date your students." It is in MIT TA handbooks, it is all over American academic life. My colleagues found my inquiry amusing and I'm guessing it got filed away in that "those crazy, litigation-hungry Americans who don't know the subtlety of human interactions" file. After all, they figure this is not an issue for a workshop for TA's, adults that they are.

But I think it is. And not just the dating part, but the whole, messy, very subtle power issue. Yes, both TAs and students are adults, of a very similar age, in fact, and I think that this is part of the issue. It is hard to notice (unless someone sits you down and asks you to consider it, with examples from your own past), that although nothing about you has changed, you suddenly hold power over your students. You grade them. Period. That's it.

And I think that fact goes unnoticed and unexplored in too many academic situations. For those becoming TAs, or professors, they don't usually feel any different the day their power takes effect, compared with the previous day, and the comraderie of academia sets up some interesting situations. We all joke with each other, we are supposed to be suspicious of absolutes and 100% results, we lightheartedly throw around insults. And among peer, that is fine. But as soon as that crossed downward across a power difference, it isn't so fine anymore.

The fact that academic science also has a huge case of impostor syndrome, means that high-ranking individuals routinely say things like "and as anyone can see" or "I'm sure you all learned this in kindergarden" in a class or talk setting. But the people sitting in the audience see, not a peer, equally unsure of her or himself intellectually, but a professor who thinks that the previous 5 whiteboards crammed with equations were child's play. Problem.

There were two cases for me, one in the upstream and one in the downstream power differential, that really surprised me. They underlined how very subtle these issues can be. First, as an undergrad, woman in physics, I was in the minority in my physics labs. And one of my TA's, a semester later, asked me out. I was still in my "don't hurt anyone's feelings" phase of life, and although I didn't want to go out, I agreed. We went to Olive Garden, I realized as soon as we sat down to dinner how worried I was about the good night kiss expectation, and in the end I shook his hand really quickly in my dorm lobby and that was the extent of the date. But I also felt weird being asked. We weren't equals in my eyes, I had looked up to him as an instructor, and it made me question all of our interactions as student and TA the previous semester.

Then there was the time I was dating a musician. I thought he was very quick-witted, and intelligent. I used to get annoyed by things he said and call him a dork. So, I wasn't even calling him an idiot or moron. Maybe I already knew, unconsciously, that
that was off the table. But it turned out, even the name "dork" made him feel stupid. Because I was a graduate student in astronomy, he gave me the power to judge his intrinsic intelligence. I couldn't believe how seriously it made him feel dumb. I was the controller of his self-esteem as far as smarts went.

This second case made me much more aware of how our categories in life, and I'm sure the reporting structures, and evaluation structures, color our actions and words. They can give them meanings we don't. I imagine that most academics feel insecure enough about their ultimate intelligence that they would refuse to believe they can make someone feel dumb.

Tough. You have the power (and the higher salary, my friends), and with that comes both a higher responsibility, and the loss of your buddy-buddy days with everyone in academia. You can't be your students' pal. I'm sorry. And, sorry, but you have to watch what you say or do, more than they do. Sexual advances, jokes about intelligence, etc., all mean something different to any listener who you have grading, employment or other power over. I know you're disappointed that you didn't feel any more confident or smart, coming out of your successful thesis defense, or tenure hearing, but your role changed.

One plate at a time

I like food. Even if on this trip I was less likely to be eating some of it, I was doing my very best. For some reason, every time L and I passed a food stand at the market where there was sauerkraut, I had to have some. No idea what caught my nose, but I did have more than one plate of it during the visit to Vilnius. Lithuanians tend to add sugar to it, and this makes it less sharp. Well, and sweeter, of course.

And there were the mushrooms, and the pork cutlets, the berry drinks and the dark bread with garlic and sour cream. There was a lovely bowl of borscht the first night, which I will be trying to reproduce at home tonight for dinner. M must have been quite intrigued as he unloaded the grocery bag last night: sour cream, bacon bits, potatoes, a lot of butter,....

There were apples fresh from family gardens, and chocolate which was a completely different creature from what used to be available in Lithuania. I was quite impressed by the plain dark stuff, given that my palette is, um, well trained to that substance these last few years. We ate little fried cheese dough balls dusted in sugar, and rye bread coconut snacks.



It was a fine eating experience.

Oh, and I was happy to find that even the coffee shop chain made pretty good lattes. C'mon, Switzerland, you really have to step it up. Starbucks probably needs to go, and you need to start a homegrown label here. Please? It would make things all the more lovely. Ok? You'll think about it? No, huh?





Sunday, September 4, 2011

Urp.


Turbulence soon overshadows the luxury of being able to sit in an exit row and not worry about buckling anyone's seat belt but my own. Guy next to me, perfectly capable of both buckling his seat belt and able to keep it buckled upon take off.

Hmmm. So is this nausea a combination effect? I haven't gotten air sick in many flights now, and on some I haven't taken any Dramamine. I wonder if stopping my antidepressants (as of a few days ago) has brought nausea back into my life. Granted, this is a bumpy flight but along with feeling more sensitive to the world of emotions, I seem to be more sensitive again to the world of inner ear imbalance.



(4 days later)

Yes, this is in fact a withdrawl symptom of the medication. Oi, oi, oi, being in a country where hospitality is underscored and threaded through and through with having guests eat, a lot, may not have been the best place to be to go through that. I was nauseous about 5-6 times a day, sometimes after eating something, sometimes when I was hungry, or in a car going down bumpy roads, or, in bed, lying still, and it just came over me. In retrospect, though, being on my own made it easier. I think a few relatives must have thought I was on a diet or something, but I ate when I could, and we all survived.

And my withdrawl side effects seem pretty mild compared to people who speak of "brain zaps" and other horrific-sounding things. Already today is starting to feel more stable.

I am home, back from Vilnius. When I download photos and have more than a minute to process the last 4 days, I'll write more. Let's just say it was a really nice trip and just set me up to be quite calm about going again, and looking forward to the opportunity.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Bored, gloriously bored, on a plane


Last time I flew to lihtuania, the first and only time,  was 1989. I was young, a junior in high school. Lithuania Was still under communist rule. 22 years ago. I still feel 25 years old sometimes so something being 22 years ago is hard to comprehend. 

I was in high school, having just spent a year at a Lithuanian boarding school in germany, and L and I and her parents flew there from....whoa, Zurich. Ha ha, I hated Zurich that night I spent at some random, Lithuania Swiss
S family friends apartment. I had taken a train
 From Germany to Zurich,
 Spent the day in Zurich alone, trying not to spend too much money, eating fast food probably, drawing in my sketchbook by the lake, then taking some tram (that I probably know well now) to some other tram
 (ditto),
 To some street in some neighborhood I probably have friends in now. It was late by the time I got to looking for this lady's street, and I w
As tired and hungry and getting a bit overwhelmed. I was in tears, ones I kept trying to hide,  as I reached her place after 15
 Minutes of walking down the empty cold looking street the wrong way
 Then the right way. My distress 
Didn't even register to this, get this, retired child psychologist! That explains a few things about the Swiss and how they deal with mental health.

I accepted a yogurt and a banana from her and went to b
Ed as soon as I could. And woke up as soon as I could, showered fast, and fled to the Zurich airport, where I'm sitting now, typing this. Airports felt safe and familiar, no matter
  What country they were in. A bit like catholic churches do to roman Catholics who may not speak the local language but can follow mass and find a kindred spirit if need be. In airports, even in the 80's, sometime was likely to Speak. Englsih,  and I could just 
Wait it out for L and her parents' flight from north America. InteRnational terminal, arrivals....even better. higher prwobability of English and even Americans. 

Their flight wAs late by more than an hour, and soon, laughing, hugging, and on. Our way (me, finally with my pack), we flew to krakow Poland. Our flight to Lithuania had long since left Zurich, so it was the loooong way around for us. Poland, to moscow, sleeping on airport benches, realizing we we at
 Te wrong one of 7 airports, my uncle practicing his probably no longer existent Russian oour cab driver whose car ceiling was falling on our head
S in the back seat. Lots of laugher. A quick stop at red square. Then long for something to Eat in a country that still didn't have much, and relizing the only stuff available was bread with lard spread. Or lard cookies. Lots of lard, as I remember. 

Finally we made it, one tired, sweaty, huny, happy family bunch, to Vilnius.

And here I go again. 

Trams and trip to airport in Zurich, no problem. On the plane to copenhagen, no problem. My freitag bag and a loudly clicking carryon (I see what you mean, M, we do have to get that sucker fixed), a job,  a life, a husband, a kid,, a dog, and clothing I bought with money not from an allowance, check.

Last time i made this trip, we had huge suitcases, bringing all sorts of things other people had suggested our relatives in Lithuania could use - dollars, huge bottles of ibuprofen and aspirin, underwear, and a box of 400 dental fillings. Tis last item, still sealed, would apparently be used by the whole family within a week or two to go get all their dental work done. This time, I bring no gifts. I have no idea who I will see, from all 4 sides of my family (L and I share 2/4 grandparents, by definition, so we'll see our mothers families together, and I will try to meet someone from my dads dads side, leaving my dads moms side for next time). I don't have parents telling me what to bring, how to gift relatives, how to do any of this, and I have been worried about this part. 

But I will be back. I will bring my husband and my little Lithuanian girl. And we will figure it all out. 

Note: I wrote this on a plane and the spellcheck was apparently not on. Sorry.